Claude Gordon Brass Camp 1991 - Claude Gordon Opening Intro

I'd like to start off camp, introducing Mr. Claude Gordon
here, what the camp is all about.
Thank you.
Mr. Gordon.
Thank you.
I'm really happy to see so many here, especially, well,
I can't say just especially, but there's a lot of new ones.
So the first time at the camp, and this is very gratifying.
And then we have some that have been here,
like Bob Cottle.
Bob comes all the way from Kansas City,
and this is his fifth camp in a row, fourth camp in a row.
I think Bob deserves a hand.
Thank you.
And Guy Shope, sitting next to him,
comes all the way from, is it South Dakota or North Dakota?
South Dakota.
South Dakota West.
Yeah.
That always reminds me of a story.
You all are familiar with Polock stories, aren't you?
I get a tick out of this one.
I've always loved it, never had a chance to relate it.
But there was two Polocks coming in from North Dakota,
and they were going to go to Montana.
So you get out of North Dakota, and then the road
branches like this.
And there's a sign there, and it says Montana left.
So they went back to North Dakota.
So anyway, I would like to introduce many that
are here tonight and that we're very proud of.
First of all, over there at the video department
is my wife, Patricia.
And she's just done so much for us, everyone in particular.
And Dr. Is she here?
Is Barbara here?
Yeah, Dr. Barbara Favorito.
And she has a wonderful band here and a great department,
and she's doing a great job and plans even more.
So we're very happy to have Barbara along with us.
In fact, we're very happy to be associated now
with the university.
We're happy to have you.
Thank you, Barbara.
Is Dr. Katz here?
I don't believe so.
Well, you'll meet him during the week.
And he's head of the music department, right?
Yeah, wonderful guy.
And you have to know in advance, he's a cello player.
That's all right.
I have a sister who's a very fine cello.
And it's all very interesting, all the instruments.
And we'll talk a lot about that.
We're very happy to have how many real young ones do we have?
No, you're not the only one.
Six, nine?
How old?
13.
13.
16.
And we have, yeah.
13.
Oh, 13.
You look older than that.
That's good.
And we have some ladies, too, don't we, young ones?
Yeah, they're here.
I know.
Yeah, it's on our minds.
Now, I'd like to have you meet two wonderful people.
You've already met them.
But we could not do without them.
They're just indispensable.
The cap directors, Tom Razine.
Where's Tom?
He's standing up.
You've all seen him.
And also, a very fine virtuoso trumpet player.
You'll hear some of this stuff during the week.
And Tep Mikasa.
Where's Tep?
Tep.
Now, these gentlemen are hardworking musicians.
All the time, they're playing constantly and teaching.
And we're very fortunate to have them.
I think they have to be without them.
They do a lot more than I do.
I sit back and enjoy everything.
Don't get upset if I sound like two trains leaving
the station at the same time.
I've got one tone on this ear, on this hearing aid,
and one on this.
So sometimes they start sounding the same time.
It sounds like two trains leaving the station,
whistling.
And I'm going to blame that all on Dr. Miller.
Because not that he did that, but we
had to have radiation two years ago.
And the radiation just destroyed my ears, affected my sight,
ruined my throat.
Outside of that, I'm doing great.
A woman called the other day, my real estate lady.
And she called.
She said, you know, I couldn't help
but notice that your students.
She said, my, they seem to care so much for you.
And I couldn't understand that.
And she says, then I found out today.
She says, you're a big shot.
I says, well, I'm not very big anymore, but I'm sure a shot.
That's the way it is.
Now, one of my longest time students, a great player.
He played first 10 years at the, what was that hotel, Carl?
Flamingo.
Yeah, 10 years first up at the Flamingo.
Now, that's a long time to hold up in Vegas.
And with many of the major orchestras throughout the country.
And he's been studying, how many years
have you been studying for Carl?
About 18, I think.
About 18 years.
Someone said the other day, I don't
know whether this was to Carl, but one of the students said,
what are you studying for?
You play good enough?
You know, what do you still take lessons for?
How would you answer that, Carl?
You don't stop learning.
You don't stop learning.
That's right.
And the greatest players have always had a coach.
Because they'll see things you never realize.
It's very interesting.
Carl talked me into starting this camp.
I don't know whether I want him to do any more favors or not.
But he, up at San Francisco one time, he said,
why don't we get a camp going and have all the students come
out and have a week together?
And he said, I think it would be really great.
So we started.
And this is our 14th year.
And most of the seminars that started back then are long,
but we're still hanging in.
And this year, I think it shows that it's going to probably
double and grow by next year.
And I hope we see all of you come back again,
like Bob Caudill has.
Now then, another one is David Schneider.
Stand up, Dave comes all the way from Eastern Canada.
This is the second time in a row.
Yeah.
This is the third time in a row.
Now then, let's have a nice end for the Japanese.
The Japanese stand up.
Now this year, there's not as many Japanese as usual.
Generally, we have about 10 Japanese.
And Masashi Sigeyama, who's actually our representative,
great player and great teacher in Japan.
And he's probably becoming the number one teacher, isn't he,
Masashi?
Isn't he becoming about number one over there?
And he has a brass group.
And he was playing so much this year.
He looked for over a month to get someone to cover for him.
He couldn't find a player that could do it.
So that's why Masashi isn't here.
But he's been to every camp but the first one.
So that means that for 13 camps, he's
been out there all the way from Japan.
And he always brings about 10 students.
So we like the Japanese very much.
Now another one that started out this seminar with us,
David Evans.
Stand up, David.
David is a very, very fine soloist.
And you'll hear him this week.
Very good.
And now then, another one that's been with us
for quite a few years now and really taking a hold in running
not only the business end but the teaching end of the camp
is Dr. Larry Miller.
Stand up, Larry.
Dr. Miller is an M.D. and one of the foremost cardiovascular
surgeons in the whole world.
And he was on the first team that
went to Russia to teach over there
on cardiovascular surgery.
And we're going to hear quite a bit from him this week
on different things that brass players should all know about,
and especially discussions on the diaphragm.
And we've all heard of diaphragmatic breathing.
Well, he's going to really set you straight on that.
And that's hard to do because some things are
so embedded in our mind that they're hard to change.
All right, now then, another fine gentleman
that's been with us from the very start.
He was a trumpet student for many, many years
and became very successful at it.
Then went into school and took the arranging
and all this kind of work.
He turned out now he's one of the most up and coming
conductors and writers in film work.
And that's Paul Witt.
Stand up, Paul.
Thank you.
Now, another that was with many big bands,
he started taking trumpet lessons
when he was in high school.
And I was over in Woodland Hills down in Los Angeles area.
And he left and went to Vegas, still coming in for lessons.
And he went to Vegas.
And the first thing you know, here's
this young kid about anywhere 16, 17, 18 years old.
And here he ends up playing first trumpet at the,
that was the Sam's.
Which one?
Jones.
Yeah, that was notably one of the toughest shows
in town at that time.
And he goes in on first trumpet and did marvelously well.
Then he did other shows there and then went with Stan Kenton
and became very, very successful.
Now he's very successful playing and also teaching.
And he's the one that will be handling the store for us.
Bruce Hayes, stand up, please.
Larry Sousa hasn't arrived yet, has he?
No.
Larry Sousa is probably one of the busiest trumpet
players in the country.
He's constantly playing.
All the top shows that come into San Francisco
has been for a year.
He's an amazing talent.
And I'll tell you a story about Larry Sousa.
And you'll hear him.
He just plays unbelievable.
And he was in one day and I said, Larry,
I ought to kick you all over town.
And he sat right on the very other side
of a very thin wall all day.
He heard every lesson I gave for the week, every month.
He had this going at him.
I said, I ought to kick you all over town.
He said, why?
What did I do?
I says, not what you do, it's what you don't do.
I says, if you'd practice, you'd be one of the greatest
virtuosos in history.
He says, no, I don't like practice.
He doesn't.
And he's one of those few that, now, don't get the idea,
you can do this.
He's one of those few that, oh, it'll
be in the case for a week.
And then one of those big shows like Miserable or something
that's very difficult, and he'll just play the daylights on it.
And he doesn't tire out.
He'll have a lot to, and you'll see a lot about armature
and that stuff from, I get the biggest kick out of him
when he'll get up in the upper register in the mouth,
he moves up to here.
Doesn't mean a thing.
That's just a phenomenal player.
And what a talent this guy is.
Great jazz player, great opera player, symphony,
great mechanic.
He does repair work and brass as a shop.
Everybody comes to him because he's so accurate
and does it correct.
And just a great talent.
And we're very proud of Larry.
He'll be in later.
And another great soloist that we generally
have from the Bay Area.
We've had a lot of fine students.
He took a lot of years, is Dave Bendekite.
That's a phenomenal player.
And now he's written books on jazz play and all that.
And he doesn't just play jazz.
He'll play anything they call him for.
Unlimited range, technique, everything.
He'll be in later.
Then there's, is George Sousa coming in yet?
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Hmm?
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
All right, now George Sousa is a character.
And we all love him.
He's probably one of the best, and I
think you'll wear me out on this, guitarists I've ever heard.
Just phenomenal guitarist.
And you'll get a big kick, because when he plays,
he'll be playing something great thing,
and both feet are going, like that.
And you'll notice that when you see him.
And well, I'll wait.
I won't describe him.
You'll wait to see him.
Wonderful guy.
And he turned out to be a good trumpet player, too.
Studies all the time.
And so I thought you would love him.
Brad Kinscher.
Is Brad here?
He's playing the show.
Oh, he had to go play the show.
He's working a symphony thing, isn't it, down somewhere.
And he had to leave.
Brad is working.
You're going to hear a lot about Brad Kinscher.
And Casey is his wife.
She's French hornist also.
Brad, right today, is one of the most amazing French horn
virtuosos that you're going to see.
And you want to keep your eye on Brad,
because you're going to hear a lot about him.
Just I can't say too much about Brad.
Rich Hoffman.
And Rich is working tonight.
He'll be in in the morning.
Another fine trumpet player.
He came out from Boston a few years ago
and was having all kinds of struggles
and was very worried about his playing.
And in those years that he's been out,
he's turned into a real virtuoso.
Just amazing range, technique, endurance.
Anything you could name, he has it.
And now he's teaching a lot and doing very well.
Now, I'm relating all these instances
because I want you all to think about it,
because every one of you in here tonight can do the same thing.
It depends on where your values are.
How much do I want to do it?
How much do I want to be a great player?
And if you're lazy, forget it.
It's not going to work.
It's something you have to do all the time.
And I want to impress upon the youngsters at their age
what a marvelous opportunity.
Just stop and think.
You have the opportunity as a young player
to become one of the world's greatest.
And I mean that sincerely.
OK.
I'll tell you a little story when I started to play.
Did I introduce Casey?
Stand up, Casey.
Casey's Brad's wife and you see a lot of her good little friends
going by.
And very dedicated.
She's always here and always doing extra things.
And then Mike McPheeters.
Where's Mike?
Stand up, Mike.
Mike was also one of them.
He got to camp every year.
And just a hard worker, good teacher,
and just become an excellent player in the last few years,
actually.
And now we have another on the staff that we're very proud of.
She was a student of my younger son, who was probably
one of the world's greatest pianists.
He's just a phenomenal pianist.
He died this year, though, so we lost him.
He died of cancer.
So there's nothing you can do about that.
But Patty was one of his favorite students.
And he had an awful lot of them.
And Patty turned out to be great.
She's going to do all the very difficult accompanying
for the soloists this year.
And believe me, that's a difficult job.
Just stop and think.
We can have blackouts, or not blackouts, it's memory lapses.
And I'll discuss that again later in the week, too.
But as brass players, we could have memory lapses in solo work
and get flustered and think, well,
what about the pianists today?
They're playing a jillion notes.
My highest regard is for our pianists, our good pianists.
And Patty Hanifan, stand up, Patty.
You know, there's so much to be grateful for now
at a young age, especially the opportunity you have.
When I was a youngster, I'll have to tell you,
I really had a desire to be a great player.
That's all I thought of was to be a great player.
And that's what a lot of these other staff tonight are.
They have that same driving desire to be a great player.
Not just a player.
Anyone can be a player.
You can play a few notes and get by somewhere.
But a great player, that's something else.
And this staff that you're with this week
is the most dedicated staff, I think, that exists.
And all fine players.
All the staff, all your counselors,
are all fine players.
Reese Henson hasn't showed up yet, has he?
He's working tonight, too.
He'll be here in the morning.
You can't tell these guys, well, they're
playing a job that's a great job.
Well, you've got to be here for the opening lecture.
They've heard it a dozen times anyway.
So they'll all be here in the morning, and you'll meet them.
But I had that desire.
That's all I thought of.
Like somebody was, what is it, my niece
is starting to write a history of my life.
And so she asked me one question just the other day.
She wanted to know, when did you decide
you wanted to be a trumpet player?
I didn't know any other thing I wanted to do, ever.
My dad got an old cornet when I was five years old.
It looked like a blacksmith made it.
I thought, boy, I love that horn.
I wish I'd kept it, because it was probably a real gem.
But I loved it.
I took it with me to bed.
When I took a shower, the horn was right there.
That's all I thought of.
Someone said, well, didn't you ever worry
about if you didn't make it?
I said, gee, I never thought of that.
All I thought of was playing.
But as a kid, about eight years old,
I was playing professionally.
And I had a good top F above IC, just never worried about it.
It was just, I just played it.
It was easy.
I'd had no lessons.
My dad showed me how to play.
And actually, that was fortunate,
because I didn't worry about anything.
I just played.
And I couldn't wait to play somewhere.
I got a job.
I don't care what it was.
If I got a cowboy job, I'd go play it.
I even got a cowboy hat still.
And I'd go out and play anything, just to play.
And then I decided I wanted to play better.
So I started taking lessons.
And I started to take lessons from a very fine poinettist
out of Chicago, an old Frenchman.
And he was a great player.
But I can't say that for the way he talked.
He taught me music, but nothing about playing the horn.
And he'd say, well, keep those corners tight.
So I did.
I kept them tight.
I never thought of that before.
In fact, I never thought of the lip, ever.
I just picked it up and played.
And he said, get that jaw out.
Where's that one?
Oh, that's a jaw.
Now, that was hard.
But I worked very, very hard at it.
And after a few weeks, I could get my jaw out.
And I could get the corners tight,
but I didn't have my high F anymore.
And you know, I never got it again
until I went down to see old Herbert Clark.
And he told me much a similar story.
He said that he couldn't play well at all
until he discarded all the methods
and started to figure it out for himself.
And then he started to play.
And that's tragic, but that happens.
And you'll find that every great player that ever
lived on any instrument, whether it's violin, cello, clarinet,
no matter what it is, they'll tell you similar stories,
every one about their struggles, how hard they had to work.
We had an old German cellist at the Columbia Broadcasting
System.
Maybe you might remember his name, Barbara.
Fritz Metz.
And Dr. Patz I know would know him.
So anyway, as a kid, lived in Berlin.
His mother would strap his cello on his back.
And he would walk the entire length of Berlin.
Now, that was a big city for his cello lesson.
By the time he was done with the cello lesson,
strap the cello back on his back,
and he walked all the way back home.
Now, that's how much he wanted to be a good player.
And he came out, then he came over to this country,
and he was principal cellist for the Columbia Broadcasting
System for a lifetime.
My, what a fine cello player.
He's the only man I ever saw in my life that had,
what do you call it, when you look at something
and you retain it?
Photographic.
Yeah.
Photographic, remember.
When they were passing out the arrangements,
and in those days, everything was live.
There was no tape, nothing like that.
Everything was live.
And every show had new arrangements for that show.
So when they were passing out the arrangements,
old Fritz would be, I could see him down there.
And I admired him.
The older players, I had a great admiration for him.
And I would watch them and study them.
And he was sitting there, and the part would come out,
and he'd sit there like this.
And he'd look at that part, finally turn it over,
and the next one would come out.
Same thing.
When the conductor got on the stand, close the book,
and never looked at it again.
That's the only time I have seen that.
I never believed it until I saw that.
So this is what great players do.
I know when I first came to Los Angeles,
I decided that I had to do something about my playing,
because I was now, I was 18.
I wasn't playing as well as when I was eight.
But I mean that.
I was probably one of the poorest players in the country.
Not only money, but from playing.
But I was still playing professionally.
And in those days, I had a little jazz band
in the mid-tabern in Great Falls.
We'd get a dollar an hour, and we'd play fan arts.
Then we'd walk home.
Everybody didn't have a car in those days.
We'd walk home, and on the way, we'd stop at a hamburger stand.
I'd get a cup of coffee and a hamburger for a dime.
Then I'd walk back home.
Now that would be, let's see, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2.
We'd go to two in the morning.
That's five hours.
Now by the time I got home, it was about 3.30.
I'd have to be up and at school.
I was in high school then, at 7.30 in the morning.
I kept that up, kept that up, kept that up.
Finally, I had a complete nervous collapse,
just from overwork.
And so that was the things that you go through.
But at 18, I could not play as well as when I was eight.
And it took old Herbert Clark three years
to get me past A on top of the staff.
But when it happened and turned around now,
I found out that bass playing is very easy, very easy.
And that makes it fun, doesn't it?
But it's no fun when you blow your brains out all the time.
So from that, and then Clark told me stories about his life.
Oh, and I got that book for you, Barbara, right here.
In fact, I'd recommend you all get it if you can get it now.
It's called How I Became a Cornettist by Herbert Clark.
This is one of the very few people.
He was a wonderful man.
I can't explain it.
But he never talked ever about how great he was.
Probably the greatest player that ever lived.
He never talked about it.
He told you all the bad things he did, the struggles he had.
And that's good for the student because he learned
that from that, there's two ways to play a brass instrument.
Now, a lot of times tonight, you're
going to hear me say trumpet all the time.
But don't let that bite you because I'm
referring to all brass.
Trumpet, trombone, French horn, everything
is a brass instrument, or cup, math, brass instrument.
It's all identical.
So when I say trumpet, I'm speaking to all of you.
A lot of times, like a French horn player won't buy a book
because it says trumpet on it.
But if you put a French horn on it, they'll buy it.
And you'll go up to the same exercises.
And it's that way with all the brass instruments.
So you'll find out that there's two ways to play.
You probably never knew that.
There's two ways to play a brass instrument.
The right way and the wrong way.
And the problem is, most everybody plays the wrong way.
And that's understandable because today, the teaching
goes in that direction.
Now, that's not the teacher's fault.
The teacher teaches what he was taught.
And the next teacher teaches what he was taught.
And by the time they've taken a full course,
like a course in college, that's right, whether it's wrong or not.
So there's two ways to play, the right way and the wrong way.
Now, don't forget that.
Keep that in mind.
And most struggle with that wrong way.
Why is that?
It's because it's like they go out and buy an instrument.
And they get some music.
And they pick the instrument up, and they go to play it.
They're not ready to play music yet.
They can't make the horn work.
And what does the young student do?
He goes home, and the first thing he tries to do
is see how many high notes he can hit.
It's the worst thing a young player can do.
He's not ready for that yet.
He doesn't know how to do it.
And he's in trouble from then on.
If you just be patient and have a good teacher
and do what the teacher says, like in the, how many of you
have seen the book, The Physical Approach
to Elementary Practice, my book?
Right, if they follow that book and do what it says,
that's the point, in 28 weeks, they'll
be up to a good high C in playing it easily.
If they try it their own way, they'll
be all the way through school and still
struggling to play a high C. Right, it's amazing.
And a good cover-up, and I hate this, today you see so many.
And Dave will bring this out, and so will Karl.
The cover-up is, well, I don't play high notes.
See, I'm a symphony player.
That's a cop-out.
That's a cover-up.
If that were true, how would you compete with a great soloist
like Frank Cataratic, or Bud Herseth in the Chicago,
or Dachshundsir?
How many of you heard of Timothy Dachshundsir out of Russia?
This man today, I think, is probably the greatest
player of this era.
He plays like a violinist, like a beautiful violinist,
sound-wise and everything.
But if that were true, then, well, I
don't have to use that, I'm a symphony player.
That's a terrible put-down, a symphony player.
There are some great players in these symphonies.
Like, how are you going to play a Brandenburg concerto
on a B-flat trumpet if you have no register?
And if you're fighting it, you're never going to play it.
How are you going to do the Mahler fifth?
I don't know how many of you are familiar with that.
That's a tremendous brass punch to have to play.
And if you're using a little tiny, pinched-up mouthpiece,
the conductor in front of the symphony couldn't hear you.
And that Mahler fifth, boy, you'd better blow,
and they'd better hear it.
So that's just a cop-out.
You're a trumpet player, or horn, or trombone, or whatever.
But you're the one that makes the sound,
you're the one that plays the horn,
you're the one that plays the high notes,
and anyone can do it.
Now, during this week, our purpose
is to show you how to play the right way.
And as a result, that means the correct way.
Now, all your life, I know a lot of you have heard,
well, you've got to learn to play correct.
Isn't that right, Barbara?
Got to learn to play correct.
But when do you learn how to play correct?
You just can't grab a little horn, put a mouthpiece in it,
and play like that.
The right way is the correct way.
And when we're here to teach you that,
that also how to play easier, and that
makes your work a pleasure.
It's fun to play when you play easily.
But if you're worried about everything you do,
that's not fun.
Then you become afraid.
So we're here to try and help you to banish every bit of fear
out of your system.
You've got to get rid of fear.
To be a fine player, you've got to completely banish it.
Just got to get rid of it.
I had a phrase I used, hit it hard and wish it well.
And sometimes you miss.
But when you miss, they're going to know it.
There's some on the walls of the Columbia Broadcasting System
I put there.
They'll never paint them out.
They're there for good.
But boy, they were good misses, honest misses.
And the conductor would never even look up.
I'll tell you one of my favorite stories.
Our conductor, our head conductor at Columbia
was one of the meanest.
I always got those mean guys, the tyrants.
And he was mean.
I've seen him absolutely scare people out of playing.
I've seen a French horn player that he destroyed.
He just could not play anymore.
And he would love to get a guy and then pick on him.
Well, I would never allow that.
Like, I'd never say, Mr. Druskin, I'd say, leg.
How do you want this?
And that's your attitude.
You are the brass player.
You don't let anyone intimidate you.
And one day, we were on a full hour concert, live,
coast to coast.
Now, the rule was, don't nobody miss.
That was our rule amongst ourselves.
So you played.
Now, this was one night that was one of the greatest nights
I ever had.
I could do no wrong.
The horn was just playing itself.
It's just one of those beautiful nights.
And that's when you're in trouble, probably,
because you get too confident.
And we're playing this show.
And up on the last tune, the first trumpet
was on top of all the violins.
That's the way these arrangements work.
And my part went on top of the vinyls.
up to a top D, and it's one of those endings that never ended. You just kept
playing the top D. You've all seen those. And I was just,
nothing worse at all, and I lost count. But the big problem was, I didn't know I'd lost count.
So I'm sailing on these top D's, and the lugs go, deep, deep, and all of a sudden,
deep, and it was too late. I had another one. So he went, deep, and I went, beep, and I fell by myself.
The only good thing about it, it was a great note. If I had missed it, that would have been a disaster,
but it was a great note. And when I nailed it, my shoulders went like this, and the concert
masters, the same thing, their shoulders looked like they were on puppets. I thought, oh boy,
I blew it that time. And I figured, well, if I'm ever going to get fired, this will be good.
I figured, well, that's all right. It was my fault. I probably deserved to get fired. So we were on
the high riser in the trumpet section, and then the trombones on the next riser, and then the reeds
on the next riser, and then all the strings. So Lunt was at the far end of the orchestra. Always
liked the trumpets in the far end. I don't like that too close to it either. So he's at the far
end, and I'm like, well, I'm going to wait right here, because he's got to come out by the trumpet
section to get out the door. So I figured, well, if he's going to say anything, let's have it over
with. So he was a funny guy. He was a great radio conductor. Man, I swear, that man had a clock in
his head. I've seen him take ten seconds out of a, exactly, when the clock ticked up, ten seconds
out of a theme while we were playing it. And then he'd look at you in that grin, you know. But we used to talk about him behind his back, of course. He would be, he walked like he was chasing chickens. And we used to always kid about that. But he was a very tough-looking guy, with a big, big nose, bald-headed, and shoulders. They said he was a championship wrestler in Russia. I believe it when he looked. But he'd walk down the,
he'd walk down the aisle, and here's the way he'd walk.
Just like you. You've seen someone chase a chicken. That's just the way he walked. And it was very humorous, really. Now, I could see
a good heart in Lud, and I liked it in that way. And we didn't, we didn't have any problems in 12 years.
And other guys, I saw them just destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. But I learned from them. I learned a lot. And that's when I coined the phrase, hit it hard and wish it well. And that's just what I did. So, you've got to get rid of the fear. Clark had some remarks on that. I'm going to repeat them. I maybe shouldn't, right?
What happened? Oh, I forgot, I didn't fit in here.
I mean, we've heard this story, but we still want to hear it.
Finally, here he comes. Done. He's coming down the aisle. So, I moved over on the end, and I'm talking to the trumpet players, you know, and as he goes by, he didn't even slow down.
He walked by the door, and then he turned and looked, and he says, don't anybody tell you you're a timid trumpet player, kid? I never heard another word.
The contractor came in the next day and he said, you know where Ludd is? I said, no. He says, he's up in Ben Paley. You know, Ben Paley was the president of CBS. He says, he's up in Ben Paley's office, and he says, they got that record on from last night, and they're just about to crack it up.
That's all I ever heard about it. It was a great experience. Now, Clark made some fine remarks to me, and these are personal remarks, adolescent, so don't take them as something that should be spread around.
But he picked up, and he was trying to get something across to me. I was very timid, and I was standing next to this great player, you know, playing, pinched up and all, and he says, you know something, and those old guys were rough. They lived in a rough era, and he says, every guy that picked up a trumpet has got a yellow streak around his back a mile wide.
You know what they say, I listen, and he says, you tell him that he's yellow, he wants to fight. He says, that makes him twice as yellow for wanting to protect his yellows. And that's what he was trying to get across, is you've got to banish that feeder thing.
And then he swung around on me, and boy, he had a chest like this, and he hit me with that chest and knocked me off balance, and I fell flat on the floor, and he's looking down, and I got up, and I walked away from him, and he hit me again, and I got up, and now I'm backing away, I'm backpedaling like crazy, and he taught in his bedroom, it was a great big room, and he backpedaled me all around that room, and I'm keeping away from him, and finally I got back to the music rack, and he says, now that's the way you play that thing, and do it, and I'm keeping away from him, and finally I got back to the music rack, and he says, now that's the way you play that thing, and do it, and I'm keeping away from him, and finally I got back to the music rack, and he says, now that's the way you play that thing, and do it, and I'm keeping
away from him, and finally I got back to the music rack, and he said, now that's the way you play that thing, and do it.
And I said, all right, I'm keeping away from him, I'm keeping away from him, and finally I got back to the music rack, and he hit me with that chest like this, and now I'm keeping away from him, and finally I got back
develop with the natural elements that
make that brass instrument work.
Now, that may take years.
Sorry, good for all of us.
But when you develop to that, you
can be sure that you can handle your partner without any fear.
You'll miss.
Everybody misses.
It's how much you'll miss.
I was very proud of my record.
I went 12 months on about 13 shows a week, live.
Never one miss in 12 months.
It got so much that I missed seeing a rehearsal one day.
And you know how it is, you're right there,
and you miss something.
The sax player's always, and the bass player was standing right
there, and at this point, he got so mad one day.
He was shaking.
He said, it's a matter of you guys.
He says, this guy never misses.
What are you doing?
And the conductor, Wilbur Hatch, was pretty clever, pretty smart.
He says, you know, Joe, he says, that's the whole trouble.
He said, if he'd just missed once in a while,
it wouldn't be so noticeable.
And then finally, he sent it down that way.
So I was very proud of that.
Now, if you don't develop wind power,
you're always going to have fear,
because wind power makes that power system at work.
And we're going to get into that all during the week.
You'll always have fear, unless you can learn to blow.
Next, small equipment.
That's one of the hardest subjects
we have to get across to anyone.
Too small equipment, and you're always
going to be afraid, because you try to hit it, and it won't.
If it won't center, it'll come back at you.
If you play correctly, they're going to come out.
You don't have to struggle for them.
And there's not talent.
Somebody said, well, how do I know if I have the talent?
If you have the desire to work as hard as you're
going to have to work, then you've got the talent.
It's about one-tenth talent and nine-tenths hard work.
That's the whole answer.
Have you ever noticed how many books today,
there's a lot of new books coming out all the time.
Almost at the end of every one, it'll
say lots of luck or good luck.
I'd like to mention right now and all during the week,
luck has nothing to do with playing good.
You don't get lucky.
You learn to play correct.
It's just a matter of correct playing and development.
He had a very fine player.
He ended up contracting for all the boat cruises
and made a lot of money.
A good player.
He'd take his own band on the boat every year.
Big band.
And when he first came to me, he had five years
under this one teacher.
Nothing wrong with the teacher.
I'm not even going to tell you the names of those guys.
But he was buzzing the mouthpiece every day,
regular, about an hour buzzing, buzzing, buzzing.
Couldn't play.
I said, Roger, how long have you been doing that?
He says, five years.
I said, my, don't you figure that if something
was going to work from buzzing in five years, it would work?
He said, I never thought of that.
He said, I'll just figure that if I did what he told me,
that one day it would happen.
There's no miracle.
We'll get into that this week, too.
Buzzing is more detrimental than anything else.
And that's going to surprise and shock a lot of you.
But during the week, we'll get into it in depth.
Now, with these thoughts in mind,
we really welcome you to this five days of studying.
And it may change your entire career.
I hope it does.
And it may start these young players out
on a career they never dreamed they could have.
It's a wonderful opportunity.
Like, people talk now, look at the things
that are happening, and this business closes,
and they go out of work, and they lose their jobs.
And this business, they lose their jobs.
I don't have one student that isn't playing and making
a living at the music business.
Now, that's a tremendous thought when
you think of every one of them.
All right, now then, it could start you on a great career.
Now, unfortunately, and this is always the problem,
there will be some here at this clinic,
in this seminar, that will listen to everything.
They'll talk about it among themselves.
They'll say, yeah, it makes sense.
Then when they leave, they'll go back
to doing exactly the same thing they've been doing all the time.
Then they'll go to one teacher, what do you think about this?
And then another teacher, well, what do you think about this?
And they have a dozen ideas on everything.
But in order to help you with that,
remember there's only one right way to play.
But they'll all seek out something new.
Like, we talked about mouthpieces last year,
and one of the students told one of the teachers,
well, I'd like to hear some other mouthpiece maker's opinions.
Well, fine.
But a mouthpiece maker makes mouthpieces.
He doesn't play them.
And you've got to think about that.
And they go by theories.
And they want to sell mouthpieces.
That's why the Bach Corporation has, they
were out there with 80,000 combinations of mouthpieces
for just the trumpet player.
That's enough to keep you confused for many lifetimes.
But they sell them.
It's like one great writer said many, many years ago,
he said, far from being content with sound teaching,
people would be avid for the latest novelty
and collect from themselves a whole series of teachers
according to their own tastes.
And then, instead of listening to the truth,
they will turn to the myths.
So true.
It's just what I've seen that happen many, many times.
Now, others will listen carefully
and get the sense of what we're talking about,
the sense of what everything is.
And they will grow and grow and grow.
I hope you all are in that category, as you can be.
Now, Clark told me one time when I was studying with him,
he says, I would rather teach a beginner
that wants to learn than teach a player that's
been playing for 30 years.
I didn't understand that statement then.
But later on, I sure did.
Because you can take a beginner.
Now, he hasn't got a lot of garbage up here
in this computer.
And when you fill a computer with garbage,
it's hard to get out, isn't it?
And when the young player gets this thing out of his head,
later on, it's very difficult to change.
I've had many older students.
And I found out they're the toughest to teach.
I'm not talking about you, Bob.
You've learned really well.
And they're the toughest to teach because they don't change.
You tell them everything.
Well, yeah, I understand.
Good.
Then they go back and do it exactly the way
they did for the past 30 years.
Then they say, why am I not improving?
Get the sense of what it's all about this week.
Now, how many of you have that brass playing book with you?
We're going to need that.
Good.
OK, I'll holler about that in a minute.
Now, it's not our purpose at this camp to put down anyone.
It's not our purpose to criticize another teacher.
That's not the purpose.
We even invite and hope that some of these teachers
will come to the camp.
Now, we call it a camp, but we might call it a clinic
next year.
I don't know.
We've been talking.
Because it's not a camp anymore.
It started out that way.
But it's not a camp anymore.
Now, another thing.
Have you ever gone to some of these big brass get-togethers,
and you're going to a room like this or a hallway,
and they have booths, one booth, next booth, next booth,
or tables, a table, another table.
And behind each table is a guy sitting trying
to sell you his model trumpet or his mouthpieces.
And here, blow on this.
Now, when you get down the hall, your ears
are ringing from these guys trying
to squeal high notes again.
And so that's a trade show.
They set all these things up, and that's great.
That's the only way people are going
to know what others are selling.
But this is not a trade show.
And that's why we can say on the pamphlet,
the only brass player seminar of its kind in the world.
We don't have guys who are selling instruments, mouthpieces,
mutes, or any of that.
We have the brass cap store for your use.
But it's not a trade show.
We're here for one reason, to teach to play correctly,
that right way.
And this entails how to practice.
You never see a player that really knows how to practice.
You can take the Arvin book and play out
of it every day of your life, and play worse
at the end than at the start.
It's how you do it.
Now, Arvin is one of the greatest books.
But it was set up without telling you that.
Now, the second thing is what to practice.
You ever see a young player get a hold of Arvin's?
And he turns to him and says, oh, I'll try this.
That looks fun.
He can't play it.
So he discards that, and he goes further.
Finally, he gets where he wants to go,
is the back of the book, which he shouldn't
be in for a long time.
And that's where he tries to practice.
And the third item, when to practice.
Now, that doesn't mean you just practice every day.
You have to know that.
You do it.
But when to practice certain exercises
so that they will follow in a pattern and you can develop.
Those are the three items of success.
How to practice, what to practice, and when to practice.
That's very important to know.
So some of these are things you can readily
understand why we say it's the only brass player
seminar of its kind in the world.
That it really is.
There's no other one that goes at it this way.
Now, our textbook is brass playing
is no harder than deep breathing.
How many have that now?
Good.
Now, that you must have.
And for tonight, starting right out by the session
tomorrow, I want you to all study pages 6 through 13.
Now, it's easy reading.
It's not difficult. You'll enjoy it.
It's not like reading a textbook on math or something like that.
It's a lot of fun to read.
And there's some good stories in it.
And while you do it, think about what you're reading.
Think about it.
And get the sense of what it's saying.
There's one of the biggest things.
Get the sense of what the author means.
And reason, reason about it.
Now, you know, it's interesting.
The great soloists, they did not play great
when they first bought a horn.
They had to learn, like everybody else.
But they stayed with it.
They learned the correct principles.
And they became world famous greats.
But that book, I talked to you about this, Clark's book,
How I Became a Poinettist.
You all should read it.
It's a great book.
You get it through Frank Houghton, the Houghton Company.
They put it up.
Because Houghton was a great old friend of Clark's.
And they played together, you know, back those days,
the Susa band.
It's a great book.
He never brags about himself.
He tells you all his mistakes.
And that'll help you.
Now, Arbon, St. Jacob, Jules Levy, Liberani, Clark.
Now, you've all heard some of those names, if not all of them.
They were the great pioneers.
Now, Arbon started out, what, 120 years ago.
So you see, the brass system isn't too new in that sense.
They all played correct.
They figured out the correct way.
They didn't just mess with anything.
They figured it out.
Now, in those days, the trumpet was a terrible instrument.
Small, nasal, hard to play, out of tune.
And it was used in symphony orchestras
through the ages in the percussion section.
At the symphony play, you'd sit maybe 80-some bars and say,
wait a minute, 81 or 82, or where am I?
If you didn't count good, you were in trouble,
unless you memorized the symphony.
And then all of a sudden, you'd come in, tick-tick-tick.
Then you'd sit there for another 100 bars
and come in the same thing.
It was a percussive instrument, not a solo instrument.
And then Arbon came along, and he worked it into the cornet.
And that became the first solo instrument.
And that was about 120 years ago.
And then followed these other great players.
And the cornet became the great solo instrument.
Then as time went on, it got longer and longer.
And pretty soon, the cornet was the trumpet,
and they were both the same.
The cornet and the trumpet, there
was actually no difference in that sense.
They made out like it was.
They said, well, he's a cornet player,
and he's a trumpet player.
Forget that.
They're both basically the same.
In fact, if you took an average conductor, put him in the corner
and turned his back, and you played a cornet,
and then picked up and played a trumpet,
he really wouldn't tell the difference.
But a true cornet and a trumpet, there was a difference.
But now the trumpet has become the solo instrument
of that end of it.
So they did not always play that well.
And it was only about, as I say, about 120 years ago.
And they dropped the truth about playing.
The only thing was, their exercises
showed they did it exactly the same way.
All the exercises they wrote.
But there was no explanation.
Arben did write some explanations.
But what happened?
Everybody interpreted it their own way.
They decided, oh, he means this, and that's
the way they taught him.
Now I tried to correct that when I explained
my footnotes, the Arben book for Carl Fischer.
And that has been out for quite a while.
The International Method and the Just the English.
But you can check.
And I left all the revisors' footnotes in it,
so that you can see the original, what the revisor said,
and then what he actually meant.
This is very, very helpful.
As I said, they did some instructions,
but they were basically privately interpreted
over the years.
So you could nod with many meanings,
instead of what was actually meant.
All right, now then, emphasis by the interpretations
were always on the wrong things.
Basically, the lip.
Everything, the lip, the lip, the lip.
And that's continued down to this day.
When you think of a brass system, what do you think of?
Oh, I've got to get a strong lip.
That's not true.
You could have a lip strong enough
to lift that table with all the equipment on it,
and never play above a low C. The lip
does not play the instrument.
Now, we're getting into that as we go along.
Now, let's take a look at some of the statements.
Ernest Williams was a Clark student,
and he wrote some great things, and he turned out
some very fine players.
Like, what was the guy in Texas?
Jacobi?
Who?
Iris.
Yeah.
And that was a student of his.
Now, notice here what Williams had to say on page 186
in this book.
He's talking about high tones.
That's what everybody's first worry is, high tones,
because they struggle.
A youngster gets a horn, and he gets in the band,
and the first thing he has to do is play high.
He gets a high C, and his eyeballs are out to here.
He turns purple and red.
That's not fun.
And so on high tones, notice what Ernest Williams says.
He says, the playing of high tones
on a cornet or trumpet is not difficult. He's absolutely
right, but that's hard to believe,
because there's been a struggle all your life, right?
So then later on, he says, it is generally
believed that the high tones are more difficult to produce
than the tones of the middle register.
This is not altogether true.
Now, why?
He says, if one has trained properly,
now there's that word, properly, and has cultivated
the correct method of production,
one tone is virtually as easy to produce as another.
Now, he's absolutely right, and that's
another thing we want to get across to you this week.
And we'll have many demonstrations.
Herbert Clark, in his wonderful book, Technical Studies,
it's a shame a reviser has got ahold of this
and practically ruined the text.
If you get the new red book, The Covered Red,
ignore the text, because he's put in his ideas.
Clark didn't know anything about it, because he's dead.
Now, notice on the ninth study, how many
have that book with you, anyone?
Clark, Technical Studies?
Turn to the ninth study, if you have it.
Now, if you don't, you can look it up later.
I'm going to read what he says.
Each of the following dramatic scales
advances one step higher, and each one
is to be played four or more times in one breath.
And there's the scales.
Look at the actors.
And it goes all the way up to the top G.
And then you work from the low G to the top G
and back that four times in one breath.
Now, in the videotape I have this summer,
we'll play that this week, and I demonstrated that four times
in one breath.
And when I was a youngster, with Clark,
I did up to six times in one breath.
And people think that's impossible.
It's not, really.
And I did this video right after I had four bypass heart
surgery.
So actually, I probably shouldn't have done it, though.
But I knew it was probably going to be the last time I'd
ever demonstrated anything, and it was.
So I did it.
And I noticed what he says.
No strain is necessary if played properly.
And I'll say that means, like William stated,
in tune with the natural elements of nature.
Absolutely right.
It is not hard to do if you're playing correctly.
So we want to very much get this across to you this week
so that you know.
And then remember it, because it's
not cool for the day.
Now today, oh, there's so much things that are taught
that we shouldn't even look at.
Like, if you go to clinics, there's one,
a new scientist.
Now, this is supposed to be scientific.
There's a guy in here with wires all over his head.
He's got something in his mouthpiece
that makes it about that long.
Still, after all these years, look at how long that is.
After all these years, they're still
looking for some kind of an answer
by measuring the strain a guy is using to play.
What difference does that make?
How much strain one guy is using or another?
It's not going to make the horn play any better.
You have to play correctly.
I can't mention that enough.
Too much attention is paid today to musical interpretation
before you can make the instrument work.
Like one great writer not too long back,
he said, without technical proficiency,
there can be no music.
That's on any instrument.
He's absolutely right.
I'm just absolutely amazed today at the mass confusion
that exists about making brass instruments work.
Just mass confusion.
It's almost a century since great artists
like Levy and Smith and Clark and those guys
did these phenomenal feats.
Today, a century later, we don't have maybe a handful
that can even come near what they did.
With all our teaching, with all our better instruments,
with all our schools, none can touch it.
They might come near.
And many schools and players and teachers
teach incorrectly.
It's not their fault. Their teaching
was handed down to them, mainly the lip and all this.
And how to hold a horn.
Push your eyes, get your horn.
These are some of the things that are handed down now today.
I see guys holding a horn like this.
How are you going to play with your horn out of control?
I had one little fella in an audience when they set up.
He said, well, I saw Maynard Ferguson last week.
And that's the way he held his horn, like that.
I said, well, fine.
When you play as well as Maynard,
then you hold it any way you want.
Until you reach that point, you hold it correctly.
All right, then the wind power.
I never see anyone that knows how to breathe.
And you hear parts of the diaphragm.
The diaphragm.
There it is.
You know, where is someone?
This young man.
Stand up.
Come here.
We'll make you a star tonight.
OK.
Move your diaphragm.
Yeah.
What have you been taught about breathing?
All right.
Can you move your diaphragm?
I don't know.
You don't know, see?
And that's absolutely right.
Now, the diaphragm lies here.
Flat.
And they'll say, push out your diaphragm.
They'll get boom handles.
That's what I think.
And they get the boom handles, and you push it against the wall.
Where is the diaphragm?
Well, you'd ask anybody.
They'd say, well, I really don't know.
Where is the diaphragm?
Well, you'd ask anybody.
They'd say, well, I really don't know.
Now, if the diaphragm lies flat, are you going to push it out
or strike it with a boom handle?
It's kind of silly, isn't it, when you think about it?
So we're going to get into that during the week a lot.
And that's being taught now to singers.
It's sad, because they never will develop that way.
Fingering the horn.
You see students playing like this, finger hooked in here,
thumb up there, and fingering like this.
And then he says, well, I was taught to keep my fingers
on the valves, because they go down faster.
Well, they don't.
They go down so much slower.
It's not even comparable.
We'll get into that this week.
I had a finger corrected.
They have no facial development.
This has got to be very strong.
No facial development was even taught.
And today, it's really sad they know nothing about the purpose
of the tone in playing a bra system.
Day after tomorrow, we're going to have quite a session on that.
They are taught, do I play high?
Get a small mouthpiece.
That's the worst advice you can get.
A small mouthpiece does not get high notes.
In fact, it inhibits them.
And they struggle still to get high notes.
And they struggle still to play high.
One band director up in Oregon asked me if I would rehearse his band.
My gosh, I finally said, yeah, if you'd like me to.
So I went in, and playing an arrangement should never be played
with a high school band, never.
They were trying to play parts that were very difficult
for fine professional players.
So high that they should never even look at a note that high.
And so I had the brass play.
It was terrible.
And I said, what are you playing on?
They all had little tiny mouthpieces.
I think they were called A4As.
Terrible mouthpieces.
We'll get into that later today.
Their lips looked like they were beat up.
They were missing every note.
And boy, they were miserable.
They were sitting there probably almost passing out.
So wouldn't it be much better than putting those kind of arrangements
to a school player, if they wanted jazz arrangements
or something of a big band, play something like the old
Count Basie records arrangement.
Even them go too high.
But high D was common.
But not those things clear out of sight.
They had Stan Kenton arrangements.
They had Maynard Ferguson arrangement.
And every band director trying, bragging about his band
winning the festival.
That's all they're thinking about.
They should be thinking about how's that kid going to play
when he gets out of there.
And actually, it's very, very destructive.
And actually, they shouldn't write those things.
That's one reason a writer wrote in a national magazine
a little while back.
He said that the trumpet seems to be an instrument designed
for sheer torture.
And I can understand why he figured that.
Because I went through many years of that too.
So it's a shame because it's easy to play right.
I've got to get that through your head.
That's hard for you to understand, I know.
But it's easy to play right.
It's hard to play wrong.
Very hard.
Now watch the virtuosos that play today.
How many of you have seen this young player on New York,
Wynton Marsalis?
Have you ever seen him play?
Effortless.
Effortless.
He goes up to a top F like the middle of the stack.
Why?
Because he plays correct.
Now I don't know where he learned or who taught him.
But somewhere, he learned correct.
And he plays beautifully.
There's a new young man coming up now, Arturo Sandoval.
Who's heard of him? Anyone?
Phenomenal player.
Never had a teacher.
He said at the clinic.
What did he say, Larry?
We had him at Cal State Fullerton.
Put it off so I can hear you.
Well, we had Arturo Sandoval at Cal State Fullerton.
And he did a clinic and a concert at her school.
And the first thing he goes and he goes and says,
I suppose you all wonder how I warm up.
He just goes, C G E C.
And he goes, he goes amongst us.
He goes, Berkert L. Clark.
Great book.
Berkert L. Clark.
First study.
He goes, he goes.
Claude Coeur.
Claude Coeur.
Claude Coeur.
I need a raise over here for you.
Yeah, in Arvins.
And so he didn't have a teacher.
He went, so he took a little break on bread.
But phenomenal.
I mean, all the way.
I hear nothing tremendous things about that now.
Yeah, but it's like, Clark Arvins.
I'd like to have him at our clinic next year.
Actually, he told me that he studied right out of the systematic program.
And you're talking about the book.
Watch these great virtuosos.
They're not struggling.
Well, now, why is it that they play so easily
and the average player has to work so hard?
It's not that they have a special talent
or something's been given them.
They learn to play right.
And every one of you in here, every one can play that way.
If they learn to play correct and stay with it.
You don't take an exercise.
And after a few days, well, I'll try something else.
Because it doesn't happen overnight.
You have to stay with it.
My students will tell you, boy, they're on exercises still.
Carl Leach came in one day.
And I had him in a total level book.
I want to get off of these.
I don't like these anymore.
He'd been on them a long time.
But what I wanted to see happen wasn't happening yet.
So I said, well, just wait a little bit, Carl.
Let's stay on another month.
OK.
So it turned out it was another two, three months.
But the next time it came, it's just, I hate these exercises.
How long?
I said, Carl, just one more lesson.
Just one more lesson.
And then I promise I'll take you off of them.
And during that month, it happened.
It clicked.
And he came in.
I said, OK.
Now, that's fine.
I'm going to put you on.
No, I don't want to leave this now.
I like it.
So he'll relate that story to you.
But that's the way it works.
So that's, I hope, has given you an idea now what we're going to be doing all week.
Now, I don't want any of you to leave this week until you have all your questions answered.
Now, if you have a question that you still don't understand, you come and ask us before you go.
Any of them, the staff, the counselors, any of them will be able to answer your questions.
OK.
That's going to do it for tonight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't hear it.
You've got to do the breathing exercise.
What did you say?
Breathing exercise.
You're allowed to come up here, Tom.
Now, I had something else that I was going to mention.
Oh, we don't have it.
Now, I'm going to show you some of the myths that you get pounded at.
Here's a great example to start out.
Back at the, this is in the, what do you call it, International Trumpet Bill Magazine.
Now, I want you to listen to this.
A new cure for intonation problems says, anyone who finds the trumpet's upper register tight or stuffy should try loosening the bottom valve caps.
Now, what in the world has that got to do with the stuffy upper register?
You could take the valve caps off the bottom valve caps.
The bottom valve caps.
Now, what in the world has that got to do with the stuffy upper register?
You could take the valve caps off and throw them away.
It wouldn't make a bit of a difference.
Particularly the third valve cap.
Better yet, loosen all the caps one or more turns and put on a grind bedder.
That's a plastic thing that cuts the wire out of the horn.
If the bottom caps are loosened until they are held on by only one or two threads, the main tuning slide must be pulled in as the pitch of the whole instrument is lowered.
I never heard so much garbage in my life.
Experiment to find optimum position of the bottom cap.
Anyone who has problems with the second valve being sharp should loosen the second cap a little more.
That's the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life.
That came out in a magazine that all the trumpet players ordered and they just eat it up.
Now you'll see all these trumpets and of course the repairmen, they latch onto these things.
They've got little washers that they put on the valve caps so it won't go up when they're so far.
Well what makes a difference is still that contact them.
But they never think of that.
Use your head.
Trumpet players especially are the most gullible people in the world.
They will buy anything if you tack a high note on it.
All at their expense.
Now some of these, let's see where we got them.
Now here's a fairly new one that's come out.
I think that red one over there.
Now somebody got this idea out of a hospital and they're selling it now to brass players.
This is supposed to...
This is supposed to develop your wind power.
Of course you sit over in a bed and you're all cramped in like this.
Supposed to develop your wind.
Now these have been in the hospital for ages.
But now they're selling it to brass players.
That's going to be a whole new market.
You good?
There we go.
If brass players can put it together.
That one goes on the top.
Where's the balance?
That one goes on the top of the other one.
Oh this one?
I don't know.
Like this?
How did you know that?
That's mine.
Is this right?
I don't think you hold that. It won't move then.
Now I guess the idea is to blow and keep that ball up on the top.
Now that's supposed to develop.
That probably costs quite a few dollars to get that.
Okay now bring that one in that brown sack.
This guy that does this is one of the nicest guys you'll ever want to meet.
And he came out all the way to Big Bear to see me.
To try and get me to back this.
Now this is called the Bacustochora.
Now he advertises this.
Now no names are mentioned. I'm not going to mention names.
Now this is a little piece of plastic.
And you curl it up and put it at the start of the lead pipe.
And he even puts in a little piece of brass to help push it in.
Now that's just like not cleaning your horn for six months and this is kind of dirty.
It gets small at the start.
And he claims that's going to help your intonation and your high notes.
Of course high notes is the magic word.
I don't know whether you can get it out once you get it in.
It's not light.
What are you doing?
He's a repairman.
I'm not quite sure.
He's got a repairman in the lead pipe.
Bruce you'll spend the rest of the night getting that out of there.
Every year all these new gadgets come out.
They're a great benefit.
Not to the brass player, but to the guy that sells them.
He makes money off of it.
I'm going to push it in so it gets clear out of the lead pipe.
I've got to take my mouthpiece.
It's in there now.
Sorry Bruce.
Now what do you do?
It's all in the purpose of education.
If it ruins your hard going.
You got what I'm saying?
The field gets all upset.
All it is, as I said, is getting a dirty lead pipe.
It's a restriction.
Now they've got a mouthpiece out.
Somebody in San Francisco came up with this idea.
Put a weight on the mouthpiece.
I'll make it have a symphony sound.
A weight on a mouthpiece is going to feel different, of course, to a certain point.
But it's not going to help you play.
It's not going to make any sound.
Now Black has even picked it up.
They've got a new mouthpiece for better symphonies.
They've got a big ugly tap on it.
It weighs a ton.
That's supposed to help you play.
There's an 80,001.
This is of the same type of thing.
Now that's heavy. That's a lead weight.
I was a teacher back in New York who would teach these guys to put a lead weight on their mouthpiece.
And practice that way.
Now you can try it. I don't think you'd enjoy it very much.
It doesn't fit too well.
That's good enough.
That's kind of weird.
It's not going to do a thing.
It'll just make you uncomfortable.
Now these are the gadgets. They're selling them.
All right.
What do you want next?
Let me see.
There are no pressure mouthpieces.
Now this is not new. This has been around for a year.
No pressure mouthpiece.
You know, Herbert Clark demonstrated one time at a college up in Oregon.
And he told me afterwards, he said, I'm sorry I never did it.
He says, everybody got the wrong idea.
He demonstrated how a developed player could hang his horn on a string and not touch it and play it up in the upper register or anything.
And he told me afterwards, he said, I'm sorry I didn't.
It went through the whole United States like wildfire.
Herbert Clark develops a new non-pressure plane.
And you have these guys with that horn hanging on the string trying to find it, you know, and getting bumped in the mouth.
And they practice that way.
Trouble players, I don't know.
You can't figure it out. They're all paranoid.
And they do all these dumb things.
Now this was one that was developed when I was a kid.
And I know these things because I got them.
I was like every other kid.
I'd buy them and try them with lip developers, everything.
And now the idea is this, is that you play and if you start using pressure, there's a spring in there and it starts to push in and all the air comes out the side.
Now it won't help your playing, but it sure puts you in a psychiatrist's office.
Let's try it.
Too much pressure, Tom.
Okay, now the next one is really something that's come along in the last few years.
And this just makes me ill when I see it.
Because I see in one college in town they have every trumpet player in that school with this thing.
It's called the Berk.
I'm sure you've all seen it.
Or haven't you?
Most of you have.
B-E-R-P.
It stands for Ross, what is it?
I don't know, that's Dave.
Now what it is, it's a little gadget.
It's based on buzzing.
It's based on the principle that you buzz to learn to play.
It's a little gadget like this and the mouthpiece fits in here, but the end is closed up.
Then there's two little holes in the side.
And they have you practicing on this.
The ad in the magazine says Berk builds chops.
And they claim they've sold 10,000.
I wouldn't doubt it.
They probably have.
Now if you like to practice this, that's your old business.
But is it much simpler to practice the horn?
Play it.
What's that going to do for you?
It's another gadget.
Another gadget.
One of the worst I've ever seen.
Now then, let me have that little horn.
Now this one, it turns out, there's an ad on that there too, I think.
Let me see that.
I think that's the acoustic part.
Yeah, yeah, that's the horn.
There's no other paper.
Well maybe I've got an idea.
Oh yeah, I heard it.
I don't want to name it.
An innovative new helpmate to the brass player.
It is five and a half inch piece of brass, that's true, including the tubing with two holes.
A ventura at the top and a bell shape at the bottom.
A mouthpiece can be fitted.
The shortcut is comparable to a natural truffa.
All right, now it's interesting to note, there's two holes in there.
But he tells you to cover those up with your fingers.
Then why'd you put them in?
Cover it.
Cover it.
What in the world is that going to develop?
You've got these players playing these things like crazy all over.
And then they wonder, why do I have to work so hard to play?
It's so simple to practice on your instrument.
That's all it takes.
But, correct me.
Oh yeah, oh this is a dandy.
I got a letter from this company.
And they said that they had this, what'd they call it now, never mind.
But they wanted me to endorse it.
And it's a little mirror.
You put on the lead pipe.
Now, you can practice and look at your armature.
Now, I always say, okay, there's one more there.
Yeah, the visualizer.
Now, you've got that mirror.
You've got that mirror there.
What are you looking for?
But, actually, you don't know.
I tell every student, get away from a mirror.
I don't want you even looking at a mirror.
They look in this and they watch.
They never find anything.
But if they did, what would they do about it?
I don't know, they'd worry.
Stay away from a mirror.
One player's lip will go like this, another will go like this.
It makes no difference.
Now, here's another dandy.
We can't make it work.
We've always never been able to.
Yeah, I never could get that to work on this thing.
Hold your mouthpiece.
This clamps on the horn somewhere.
And then that's the mouthpiece.
Now, you're supposed to buzz.
Everything's based on buzzing all the time.
Now, you start buzzing with the mouthpiece way out.
And then as you buzz, you keep pushing it in until it hits the horn.
It sounds terrible.
And when it gets to the horn, it'll...
And that's supposed to make you a great player.
But what about all the technique, all the reading?
But they do this all day.
You spend half the time getting it to work.
That makes you a player.
Now the visualizer.
I don't know what that is.
That's the transparent mouthpiece.
Oh.
Oh, that's...
Take that out of the rack.
This is another dandy.
It's based on buzzing.
And this guy thought so much of this that he had it gold plated.
Wild listeners, gold plated.
Now, see, the idea is this.
You get the feel of the horn, but you're still buzzing.
It's not going into the horn.
Why?
Why not just practice the horn?
That's all it is, buzzing.
Not bad.
Okay.
Now, that's the cool one.
There's another one in here that says...
Yeah.
Ambusher.
Now, he says, for the trumpet, it's got the mouthpiece down here.
Now, he says, for the French horn, it's got the mouthpiece up here.
Now, he says, for the trombone, it's got it higher.
Yeah.
They're all cut mouthpiece brass instruments.
The obvious is no different on any of them.
We'll get into that.
They should be high on your mouth.
Okay.
Yeah.
Now, here's...
This one?
Either one.
I had a student up north come to me.
He said, the first trumpet in our band gave me this.
He gave me this.
He said, I should use this.
I said, well, what's it for?
He says, well, you can see your ambusher that way.
I says, yeah, but what are you going to do then?
You can see your ambusher, all right, but what are you going to do with it?
Well, I don't know, but it makes it easier to see the ambusher.
And that's what difference.
Every player I've ever seen has got a different ambusher.
I've had them over here, over here.
I had ambusher all over my mind.
I could play from here to here.
And those guys have seen it.
I had ambusher up here.
I had it down under my lip.
And as a result, when I was finally playing correct, if I got tired, I could move over a little bit.
Keep on playing.
So it's all garbage.
Use your head.
And that's what you're here for this week.
And think about it for a reason.
Okay, now I know you're getting tired.
We've been going quite a way.
It's longer than I expected to go tonight.
But I get carried away sometimes.
You're going to do breathing exercises.
How to do the breathing exercises.
Yeah.
Now, before you leave, one thing, because the first thing in the morning, you're going to do breathing exercises.
Now, I want everybody to stand up.
Now, this is one of the most important things you're going to do, is learn how to do breathing exercises.
Now, you've studied trumpet, right?
What and how will you talk to Bruce when they tell you that?
Well, you're fortunate.
That's not bad.
Who did you study with?
Who?
Okay.
That's still fair.
There's a guy that's been studying, right?
Okay.
I learned that I was supposed to stick out my stomach.
Right.
And so I bet you were told push out your stomach.
Right.
All right.
Push out your stomach.
Does it make you bloat?
No.
No, it should.
That's an adjustment.
And that's a common teaching.
And I went into a college one day, and here's six trumpet players lined up and just threw
a broom handle.
I asked them, I said, what are you doing?
Working on the diaphragm.
We'll get into that a lot this week.
Now, when you take a big breath, air goes into the lungs.
Where are the lungs?
Up here.
They're not down here.
The lungs are here.
Now, the only thing you think about, fill your lungs.
Now, not over full.
I didn't say over full, did I?
You fill your lungs.
Take a big breath.
And you'll find, gee, that feels pretty good.
Because that's where the air should go, and that revitalizes your whole system.
Now, if you pull your arms back when you take your breath, that opens up and gives you good posture.
It's a matter of good posture.
If you go like this and lean back, if you take too much air, you're going to go, oh, yeah, I can't say anything like that.
Just like that.
Comfortably full.
Fill up.
Like that.
Now, you're full.
Your chest is up.
Talk normally.
Don't get tight.
Now, I want you to take, everybody just relax.
Now, take a big breath again.
Fill up.
Now, the chest is up, isn't it?
Now, don't let that chest drop.
Leave it there, but let the air out.
Chest still up.
Now, fill up again.
Chest still up.
Let the air out, but don't let the chest come down.
All right.
Now, this is going to be the start.
Now, you can practice that all you want this evening for what time you have left.
Fill your lungs.
That's all you think about.
Take a big, comfortable breath.
And you can do that about ten times, you know, and deep the chest up.
A rule I will mention again and again this week.
If the chest is up, you cannot breathe well.
That's natural.
So work on that, and you're going to start out with that in the morning.
Okay?
That'll do it for tonight, kids.
Thank you.